• PLUS 

Catalyze change and transform your inventory planning

Change is hard for any organization. But Princess Auto, a nearly 90-year-old Canadian hard goods retailer, changed its collective thinking and brought a new level of efficiency to its inventory planning and how product flows to its customers.

Subscriber: Log Out

Sorry, but your login has failed. Please recheck your login information and resubmit. If your subscription has expired, renew here.

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the January-February 2021 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

January-February 2021

This morning, I turned on the television and watched the first stretch-wrapped pallets of the just-authorized vaccine being loaded onto a truck at a Pfizer plant in Michigan. From there, the pallets were headed to FedEx’s logistics hub in Memphis where they would be delivered to 153 locations across the 50 states. The event was both historic and mundane: Historic in that the shipments represent the hope of a nation that in the coming months, we’ll begin to put 2020—and COVID—in the rearview mirror; mundane in that this is a scene repeated millions of times a day, without fanfare, in plants and distribution centers across the country. Two of…
Browse this issue archive.
Already a subscriber? Access full edition now.

Need Help?
Contact customer service
847-559-7581   More options
Not a subscriber? Start your magazine subscription.

In business, the only constant is change. Given the complexity, connectedness and immediacy of today’s modern world, it’s safe to say that you, and your organization for that matter, need to become very good at change. Sure, we’ve attached fancy and modern names to it—pivot, for example—but the bottom line is we all need to excel at changing our minds, our worldviews and work and personal habits.

But change is hard. To highlight just how hard, consider the difficulty people have in changing their habits when faced with a life-threatening situation—people who require coronary-artery bypass surgery. After the surgery, patients are told that they need to change their lifestyle to maintain their health—stop smoking, stop drinking, stop overeating, start exercising and reduce stress. Yet, study after study confirms the dismal results—within two years of the surgery 90% have not changed their lifestyle. Those are odds of about nine to one against you making the change, even in a life and death situation.

It’s no surprise then that business change has similar odds. After all, we’ve eventually realized that business change is really about people—the ability to change not only our own minds, but also help others change theirs as well. Joe Jackman, in his excellent book, “The Reinventionist Mindset,” speaking about business transformation and reinvention summed it up perfectly when he wrote: “Change is a human endeavor with a business consequence.” Business change and transformation is about people and, essentially, the inner workings of the brain.

This article outlines the approach and learnings that Princess Auto Ltd used to completely transform how it plans and manages the supply chain and the flow of inventory from supplier to consumer. It will provide details on how this 87-year-old company was able to change the collective thinking, or mental model, of the company utilizing many of the principles and ideas outlined in “The Catalyst,” a new book about the process of change by Jonah Berger.

This complete article is available to subscribers only. Log in now for full access or start your PLUS+ subscription for instant access.

SC
MR

Sorry, but your login has failed. Please recheck your login information and resubmit. If your subscription has expired, renew here.

From the January-February 2021 edition of Supply Chain Management Review.

January-February 2021

This morning, I turned on the television and watched the first stretch-wrapped pallets of the just-authorized vaccine being loaded onto a truck at a Pfizer plant in Michigan. From there, the pallets were headed to…
Browse this issue archive.
Access your online digital edition.
Download a PDF file of the January-February 2021 issue.

In business, the only constant is change. Given the complexity, connectedness and immediacy of today’s modern world, it’s safe to say that you, and your organization for that matter, need to become very good at change. Sure, we’ve attached fancy and modern names to it—pivot, for example—but the bottom line is we all need to excel at changing our minds, our worldviews and work and personal habits.

But change is hard. To highlight just how hard, consider the difficulty people have in changing their habits when faced with a life-threatening situation—people who require coronary-artery bypass surgery. After the surgery, patients are told that they need to change their lifestyle to maintain their health—stop smoking, stop drinking, stop overeating, start exercising and reduce stress. Yet, study after study confirms the dismal results—within two years of the surgery 90% have not changed their lifestyle. Those are odds of about nine to one against you making the change, even in a life and death situation.

It’s no surprise then that business change has similar odds. After all, we’ve eventually realized that business change is really about people—the ability to change not only our own minds, but also help others change theirs as well. Joe Jackman, in his excellent book, “The Reinventionist Mindset,” speaking about business transformation and reinvention summed it up perfectly when he wrote: “Change is a human endeavor with a business consequence.” Business change and transformation is about people and, essentially, the inner workings of the brain.

This article outlines the approach and learnings that Princess Auto Ltd used to completely transform how it plans and manages the supply chain and the flow of inventory from supplier to consumer. It will provide details on how this 87-year-old company was able to change the collective thinking, or mental model, of the company utilizing many of the principles and ideas outlined in “The Catalyst,” a new book about the process of change by Jonah Berger.

SC
MR

Latest Resources
Skills Report 2025: Supply chain and procurement trends
What are the biggest challenges facing supply chain and procurement leaders right now? Get the details in this just-released research brief.
Download

Subscribe

Supply Chain Management Review delivers the best industry content.
Subscribe today and get full access to all of Supply Chain Management Review’s exclusive content, email newsletters, premium resources and in-depth, comprehensive feature articles written by the industry's top experts on the subjects that matter most to supply chain professionals.
×

Search

Search

Sourcing & Procurement

Inventory Management Risk Management Global Trade Ports & Shipping

Business Management

Supply Chain TMS WMS 3PL Government & Regulation Sustainability Finance

Software & Technology

Artificial Intelligence Automation Cloud IoT Robotics Software

The Academy

Executive Education Associations Institutions Universities & Colleges

Resources

Podcasts Webcasts Companies Visionaries White Papers Special Reports Premiums Magazine Archive

Subscribe

SCMR Magazine Newsletters Magazine Archives Customer Service

Press Releases

Press Releases Submit Press Release